Wednesday, 18 December 2013

Review| Auxcide- Pixel & Speck

Earlier today, Auxcide released a double album, Pixel and Speck, on 8static’s
label. At his request I’ve taken on the task of reviewing the 22 track
behemoth, though first some background info. My working relationship with Bryan
(Auxcide) spreads back to before his debut, where we worked with him through Pxl-Bot
to release and promote ‘of Atoms and Stardust’. Following this we released
another EP and a remix album of the aforementioned debut on Pxl-Bot by him, as
well as signing him up for various compilations and projects (WeeklyTreats to
name but one) during the time I’ve known him. None of this is a secret to
anyone, but such a lengthy partnership (though it was always a fairly
passive undertaking for Alex and I; whatever Bryan brought to us was instantly releasable,
infectious and easily sellable) could potentially result in bias. Hopefully my emphasising
of this point, along with the subsequent paragraph where I slag off all that is
wrong with this release, will go to some way in proving my later gushing to be disconnected
from enamoured hyperbole.So; my main bone of contention. Out of the 22 tracks here, most
of which are stylistically mono-tonal, half are covers and half are new tracks,
though they are dispersed evenly throughout the two albums. Whilst this works
to an extent on the far superior ‘Pixel’, on ‘Speck’ where the quality overall
is lop-sided, what results is a disjointed and confusing mess of often
disposable tracks mixed in with higher quality, often original, compositions,
which on the whole serve only to highlight how tedious the lesser tracks
actually are. The cover of Signalrunners’ ‘Corrupted’ is ruined by weak drums,
causing a track that would otherwise have flourished fall flat. Elsewhere, ‘Theme
of Everything’ and ‘The Moon’ (covers from Street Fighter and Duck Tales
respectively) breach the threshold of stomachable cheese by some margin, only
bested in biliousness by the album’s Skrillex knock-off ‘Speck’, a track that
whilst having extremely impressive programming, suffers from a dangerous
mixture of being a tedious and an instantly forgettable cheap thrill, a situation repeated in ‘Yung Lyfe’, though in a far more repetitive and grating
manner. Speck doesn’t feel like a fully formed album as much as it does a
collection of B-Sides.

Pixel, however, is everything Speck is not. Beginning
with the huge ‘Creation’, where hauntingly pretty melodies overlap and swoon,
the album moves on to the equally breath-taking ‘Morphine’ and ‘Source’,
forming a trifecta of some of the best Auxcide in existence. Later, Auxcide’s
take on Roboctopus’ ‘Your Stars at Dawn’ and Pacific Rim cover ‘Restart The
Clock!’ froth at the bit with adrenaline and epic space thematics, and whilst
the album dips a bit with the Game of Thrones and RoccoW covers, the final four
tracks (‘Cherry’ through to ‘The Planet is Asleep’) are among, if not the, best
in Auxcide’s discography.

All this praised directed at Pixel is unfair however. Speck
does have its high points: Metroid cover ‘Varia’ makes use of eclectic piano
and slowly evolving melodies to emotionally overwhelm, album opener ‘The
Universe Fights Back’ mixes the ‘Auxcide’ sound with Ubik-esque melodic
play, ‘Catalyst’, when its hooks are finally revealed, spits J-Pop/anime theme phrases
to make one of the most uplifting tracks around. Also, Speck's crowning piece, ‘Nitrous’, shows up all that precedes, filled with intoxicatingly memorable melodies and
grooves the size of pylons, the type of track that proves any naysayers that
Auxcide is one of chiptune’s greatest
and most affective artists around today.

Overall, then, Pixel and Speck are a slightly uneven duo
hampered by a few irrelevant or uninteresting tracks, but mostly comprised of
incredible, mind-bogglingly expert offerings. In my opinion either one album of
covers and one of originals, or the cutting of 8 or so unnecessaries to form
one bulkier full length, would have framed the quality content more
effectively.

Saying that, with tracks as throat-catchingly euphoric as
Pixel’s title track, which is even more emotive than anything from [Dimensions]
(or any of his work before that, in fact) the few qualitative discrepancies should
be ignored and all gut emotions favoured. Pixel is an incredible piece of work,
and unrestrained by Speck’s lesser appeal, is easily in the top five of the year’s
best releases. No question. For those that enjoy Pixel’s charms I would, of
course, also recommend a cautious exploration of Speck, but the real star of
the show, and Auxcide’s best and most definitive work to date, is certainly the
former.

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Owned and written by Andrew Kilpatrick, with Alex Kelly around to help run it and Stephan Tul proofing, TWG was set up in March of 2012 and launched in July. The Waveform Generator brings the crème de le crème of chiptune influenced music to the world. This blog is where it all goes down, so check back frequently for more news as well as reviews, interviews, haikus and some sweet previews.